http://theworkingdraft.com/media/podcasts2/WaitWhat253.mp3 0:01-10:49: Greetings! Graeme “Bad Chicken Sandwich” McMillan and Jeff “Really Bad Back” Lester have one of their most meta-openings ever, as we talk about…why our episodes open the way they do! Harbinger to come,…

First and foremost, a very big *thank you* to superhero Graeme McMillan, for throwing together the edit for this show after recording it in his house. It’s like he gave me two vacations!

Second (and eightmost? Am I understanding the progression correctly?), I’m going to ride that vacation out to the very end, so the shownotes are complete but a bit truncated! Nonetheless, all the questions are there in the right place, so you can skip to where you want as you choose or even listen to the full thing, if you like!

0:01-12:30: Welcome to our sorta-annual “in-person” episode! Jeff is in Portland, Oregon to vacation and talk with the mighty Graeme McMillan! So, of course, we talk about some of the great Portland attractions: Salt & Straw ice cream!

12:30-38:39: While on vacation, Jeff re-read 33 issues of Werewolf By Night, a book he loved dearly when he was young and returns to find it, uh, promising? But what does it promise, and to whom does it deliver?

Also discussed: “bro’s gold,” Christina Z vs. Christy Marx, an amazing scene from You Are Deadpool #4, and more!

38:39-1:07:46: Listener questions! Eric Rupe launches the first volley: Did Jeff ever finish reading the manga Fuuka? Did he watch the anime? Would he be interested in reading Fuuka: The Official Erotic Short Short Collection in full color?

Is Jeff still reading Prison School? It seems like a very Jeff comic and I’m curious about his opinions on the series.

Any thoughts on the current state of the Direct Market and it’s potential future? Doom and gloom? Rainbows and sunshine? Somewhere in between?

Does the success of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the failure basically every other attempt say anything in particular about doing a shared universe outside of comics and the Direct Market?

And for some just general podcast stuff, any chance of reading and discussing the Jim Lee/Wildstorm Fantastic Four run given the discussion you guys had about the retro-ness of the FF and Image at the end of the last Baxter Building?

1:07:46-1:14:18:Matthew M asks: What series do you find surprising that it lasted as long as it did? For me, I’m always kind of shocked that the late ’80s Starman series lasted for 45 issues. (Though I’ve never read it, or heard anyone mention it, so maybe it’s a hidden gem.)

1:14:18-1:19:22:DDT asks: I always wondered why the 2000AD 8-page-or-so story format is so UK and never caught on in the US (I know it feels like I have to rewire my brain to appreciate that format’s tempo).

1:19:22-1:21:21:James Masente says: Comics are shit nowdays vs. Comics are better than ever. Pick a side and pull no punches!

1:21:21-1:32:57:Skye wonders: Do you think Big 2 comics would be more successful at bringing in New readers if there were mail order subscriptions like magazines? If not, what distribution model would you want to see implemented?

1:32:57-1:42:52:Yonatan wants to know: With an increasing number of big creators at DC being bringing things back from/being nostalgic for the post Zero Hour/Pre Infinite Crisis DCU, what characters/concepts/books would you like to see return from that era?

1:42:52-1:47:58:Skye also wonders: If someone forced you to make a miniseries reboot or movie adaptation of Starbrand, what would your pitch be? And: If you can’t work with this, give me a Micronauts pitch instead.

1:47:58-1:49:38: And Yonatan also wants to know: Also, question more for Graeme: a #LegionofSuperheroes collection is coming out in July that finally collects the Earthwar arc. (Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes #241-245) Where does it fall on your top Legion stories list and would you recommend it for new readers?

1:49:38-1:51:03:Chad Nevett asks: With SHIELD finishing with the final two issues coming out, are there any other unfinished/cancelled too soon books you’d like to see have a chance at a proper ending?

1:51:03-1:54:26:Troy Wilson drops by via Baxter Building: Of all the FF issues you’ve read so far, which would you each consider to be your top five individual issues? (Or top ten, if you’re low on questions.)

1:54:26-2:01:11:Flasshe queries: Have you ever given up reading comics? If so, what was your longest inactive period, what made you stop, and what made you start back up again?

2:01:11-2:03:57: Here’s one from the excellent Bill Reed: If everything on Earth was destroyed except for one comic book issue, which comic book issue would best represent humanity for the alien archaeologists who find it?

2:03:57-end: Closing comments! Look for us on Stitcher!Itunes! Twitter together and separately: Graeme and Jeff! Matt! Tumblr, and on Patreon where a wonderful group of people make this all possible, including the kind crew at American Ninth Art Studios and Empress Audrey, Queen of the Galaxy, to whom we are especially grateful for their continuing support of this podcast.

NEXT WEEK:Wait, What? Ep. 249! We answer more questions! I’d love to say all but let’s just see how it goes, shall we?

Hello, friends! Skipping our way back after skip week, it is the Wait, What? Podcast, with much talk about comics and comics news for you. As per our discussion in the comments of our previous show notes, there are some time annotations in the show notes below in order to help you skip spoilers you do not want to spoil you…but be forewarned I put most of them down guessing the intro would add a minute to the time and it was only a mere fifty-six seconds. I adjusted things accordingly for the Silencer spoiler but everything else might hit four or five seconds sooner than indicated? It’s not perfect, but on the other hand I might have this wrapped three fewer hours than when I used to do full show notes.

So, with that in mind, on with the show!

Topics discussed:

The Salt-N-Pepa Pedanticism Hour (fortunately not a full hour);

A lot of moving parts to the comics news: first up, the announced discount for Comixology Unlimited; the aftermath of Marvel’s latest absurd Amazon sale; the joys of Hoopla; the sumptuous art of Milk Wars: Doom Patrol/Justice League of America by Gerard Way, Steve Orlando, the amazing ACO, (with a backup strip by Magdalene Visaggio and Sonny Liew) (with story spoilers right around the 45 minute mark to around the 47 minute mark or so); Metal #5 by Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo (pretty much the whole conversation is a spoiler, I guess? To the extent we even understand what’s going on, which is part of the problem? So I guess starting around the 48 minute mark to right around one hour and three if you want to skip the majority of the convo?) Also discussed: Bendis’s plans for Superman and DC, the Scott Snyder weekly JLA event, and some understandably nervous retailers.

1:29:00 (or so): A *very* quick discussion about Ethan Van Sciver’s harassment of Darryl Ayo and the difficulty of nailing down an objective history of something happening 100% on social media;

1:39:05: Moving into talking about comics we’ve read: Graeme has good things to say about Motherlands #1 by Si Spurrier, Jung Gi Kim, Eric Canete, and Rachel Stott; Jeff mentions West Coast Avengers: Zodiac Attack by Steve Englehart, Al Milgrom, and Joe Sinnott (but really doesn’t talk about how good it is—people, it’s really good); Silencer #1 by John Romita Jr. and Dan Abnett (with what Graeme points out is probably a significant spoiler mentioned at 1:53:52 to 1:54:08) and contrasted with Jennifer Blood, as well as the first issues of Abbott #1 by Saladin Ahmed and Sami Kivela, and Black Dahlias #0 by Kristin Schwarz, Shad Clark, and Ari Syahrazad. But, Jeff also read vols 1, 2, and 5 of Duet of Beautiful Goddesses by Yumi Hanakoji, so why should we listen to him, if you think about it?

2:03:05-end: Closing comments that very quickly go off the rails because we talk about the continuity of John Byrne’s Superman and how much control a creator should have; and then back to closing comments, and then we are back off the rails a few more times.

0:00-18:02: Greetings from Graeme McMillan and Jeff Lester! It’s only a few seconds in when Graeme says, “Welcome to the Mellow Wait, What? Hour,” and although he’s only riffing on Jeff’s low-key opening…he’s kind of on the money! (Although, y’know, not an hour, of course.) Yes, *un*-strap your seatbelts as two semi-overworked dudes let down what’s left of their hair to talk comics with a certain je ne sais atténué. We move quickly on to talk about the world of comics news, but there is a certain indolence there as well because, as Graeme puts it, “a lot of people are, to be honest, shitting themselves before San Diego.” Discussed: supporting examples; the few announcements that have popped up, the lack of even embargoed news for Graeme to have up his sleeve; Previews Night; a thought experiment about what might have happened if DC had tried to do a prequel to Watchmen; and what happened to bookstore sales of Wonder Woman after being the biggest movie of the summer; and more.

18:02-29:27: By the way, if you’re Dan Coyle—and hopefully that is only applicable to one person and there’s not a small army of people using that monicker to snark at us in our website’s comments—our discussion of a conspiracy theory about Marvel’s role in keeping Wonder Woman from making any of the sales charts on Amazon leads to us both explicitly agreeing: Yes! Yes, we will talk about John Byrne’s run on Star Brand! And then us being us, we go on to talk a bit about our memories of John Byrne’s Star Brand, the end of the New Universe (and Graeme being Graeme, he admits to having already just read what he’s just agreed to read), a sly serving of three way mid-80s beef, and more. But first! We talk a bit about digital buffet fatigue, the reduction of prices in the 2000AD online store (which Jeff can’t even think about too much or he will lose his mind and most of his most recent paycheck), and other sundries. If you haven’t gotten the sense this is an even more meandering episode than usual, dear Whatnaut, hopefully the fact I just talked about stuff I remember us discussing before it even actually got mentioned in the logical order you would expect it in should give you a clue.

29:27-41:57: And here’s another clue: “Oh man, Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe,” Graeme sighs,” what did you do to me?” If you think that means we are going to tread on the edges of sacred House to Astonish ground and discuss both the Handbook and Who’s Who in the DCU, give yourself a cigar! A thirty-plus year old cigar! One inked by Josef Rubenstein! And then was pressed in a Tuska-era issue of Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes! (Don’t worry, it will all make sense if you listen.)

41:57-58:12: “Ah, Graeme, do you want to talk about recent comics that you’ve read?” Graeme admits (not entirely accurately, as it will turn out) the only recent comics he’s read is Dark Days: The Casting by Scott Snyder, James Tynion IV, Jim Lee, Andy Kubert, John Romita, Jr., Scott Williams, Klaus Janson, and Danny Miki (with Alex Sinclair and Jeremiah Skipper on colors)! But should you be surprised when talk turns to which Super Powers action figures and which Secret Wars action figures each of us had? Probably not, no.

58:12-1:01:21: Want to hear Graeme recap the amazing “City of the Damned” storyline from Judge Dredd The Complete Case Files, Vol. 8? If not, skip the section but hoo boy you will be missing out. I *really* want to read this storyline now!

1:01:21-1:06:57: And then we’re back to talking about Dark Days: The Casting again!

1:06:57-2:01:02: And then Jeff wants to blab about the other recent comics he’s read because he thinks—possibly quite mistakenly—that would be something the listeners to this podcast might want to hear about: Discussed: Rocket #3 by Al Ewing and Adam Gorham; Suicide Squad #21 by Rob Williams and Gus Vasquez; Deathstroke #21 by Christopher Priest, Diogenes Neves, and Jason Paz; Batman #25 and #26 by Tom King and Mikel Janin; Chilling Adventures of Sabrina #7 by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa and Robert Hack, which leads to a very long discussion/disagreement between Graeme and Jeff about who would be on a list of the best-selling/most reliable creators of the current generation of Image creators, with a lot of Graeme looking up sales figures and dates; Kill or Be Killed #10 by Brubaker and Phillips (and Elizabeth Breitweiser!); Rock Candy Mountain #4 (so good!) by Kyle Starks and part of an ongoing underlying conversation across these titles—why aren’t more good comics discussed as they go along? Are we *all* addicted to dissecting the next new thing?

2:08:11-2:22:15: Closing comments? No, not quite! Jeff wanted to correct an earlier misstatement of his from a few weeks back when he said that all episodes of Wait, What? are currently available on iTunes. Turns out iTunes’ podcast lists top out at 300 so…happy tricentennial to us? And also, though we tried to avoid doing our quickly-becoming-a-standard-shtick of complaing about Marvel: you guys did you see that damn t-shirt variant cover thing? What the hell?!

2:22:15-end: “I have, I’ve got to admit, really enjoyed this meandering episode,” announces Graeme. “Because it really is so close to San Diego that this is exactly where my mind is at right now.” And with that—after some debate as to when we will return (spoilers: three weeks!), we move to..closing comments! Look for us on Stitcher!Itunes! Twitter together and separately: Graeme and Jeff! Matt! Tumblr, and on Patreon where a wonderful group of people make this all possible, including the kind crew at American Ninth Art Studios and Empress Audrey, Queen of the Galaxy, to whom we are especially grateful for their continuing support of this podcast.

In Three Weeks: Wait, What?, Ep. 230 (or three hundred and something, but who’s counting?) Have a nice little summer break and come back and join us here in August!

00:00-55:05: Greetings! But then, in under thirty seconds, Jeff drags us into the state of Marvel Comics because he knows Graeme has some thoughts on the Marvel Legacy “comic book industry changing” announcement of Friday, which involved 51 comics announced across six different websites, the social media accounts of their PR people, the occasional PR mailing and via the game-changing, high-density-information tool of …animatedGIFs, you guys! Yes, what better way to communicate plans about your much-needed initiative than the very tool most of us on Twitter use to make our “I can’t even” tweets seem interesting? It’s a very big conversation that, if nothing else, feels like we’re a little more worried about Marvel’s future than Marvel is? Anyway, be prepared because, as Graeme puts it, “I apologize, because I’m about to complain *a lot*!” Also discussed: the 51 titles announced and the one missing title; our dim memories of Spirits of Vengeance; the “innocence” of Marvel Two-In-One and Marvel Team-Up; homework; whether or not anyone is really calling for Marvel management to leave; a related digression about the perception of digital comics, digital trades, and Marvel’s recent digital fire sale on Amazon; bewilderment; terror; suffering; etc.

55:05-1:00:54: But we got you through all that so we could get to this: comic books! Sweet, sweet comic books! First up: Graeme is very enthusiastic about The Complete Sabrina the Teenage Witch: 1962-1971 (Sabrina’s Spellbook), a book he describes in a way that reminds Old Man Jeff of a scene from The Big Chill that either isn’t on Youtube (because Jeff’s too old) or Jeff can’t find on Youtube (because Jeff’s too old). Too bad, Jeff! Graeme also likes the back-up story by Tony Bedard & Ben Caldwell back-up for the Wonder Woman/Tasmanian Devil one-shot. (The joke from the Bugs Bunny/LOSH joke also sounds pretty great.)

1:00:54-1:04:57: Speaking of DC’s “comic” books, Jeff wants to talk about the final issue of The Flintstones by Mark Russell and Steve Pugh. We’re going to miss this book.

1:04:57-1:22:55: And then….Jeff has more stuff he needs to get off his chest about Tom King’s Batman, Yes, those of you paying attention will not be surprised to see our podcast’s ongoing subplot of 2017 arise yet again! And yet this probably will be the very last take on it for some time (God willing!) as Jeff talks about reading the first two trades, “I Am Gotham” and “I Am Suicide,” looking at “The Brave and the Mold” issue, the Bat Hound storyline, and having a rough outline of an epiphany while reading those in light of his recent reading of Bob Haney’s Brave And The Bold issues.

1:22:55-1:43:41: And the flipside of this, but also related in Jeff’s mind is his very recent read of Doom Patrol: Brick by Brick Vol.1 by Gerard Way and Nick Derington. On the one hand, Jeff feels like Way is striking a great balance between being respectful of the characters and using them as a way to talk about and embody other experiences…but Jeff is also a little vexed by the way some of the more traditionally important tasks of fiction writing are handled. By contrast, Graeme has *a lot* of love for the book, and confesses to being unable to be objective about it at all. Leading to some metacritical talk about criticism, subjectivity, and objectivity.

1:43:41-2:06:10: And to drag in another layer to this, Jeff read Manga In Theory and Practice by Hirohiko Araki, creator of the *amazing* JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, and wants to not only talk about some of the practices Araki discusses in that book, but also the conflict and challenge of reading in translation the works of a cartoonist from a very different culture.

2:06:10-2:11:21: And! Jeff has read volume 1 of Golden Kamuy by Satoru Noda and it was rad. (Even with the fucked up thing that keeps happening to Viz’s digital manga recently.) Is it possibly the best bear-punching comic ever? A controversial statement, we know….but Jeff loves this book.

2:11:21-2:22:49: And and! Jeff also really loved the book My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness by Nagata Kabi. Also discussed: Jeff’s new iPad, Comixology, GoodReader, and The Leopard of Lime Street (a.k.a. an early British attempt to do Spider-Man)….which leads us into some preliminary comments about both the Clone Conspiracy trade and Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-Man #1 by Chip Zdarsky, Adam Kubert, and (holy cow) Goran Parlov.

2:22:49-end: Closing comments, but first a big shout-out to the fine folk at 2000 A.D. for putting a pull-quote from Graeme from this very podcast on Judge Anderson: Year One! Look for us on Stitcher!Itunes! Twitter together and separately: Graeme and Jeff! Matt! Tumblr, and on Patreon where a wonderful group of people make this all possible, including the kind crew at American Ninth Art Studios and Empress Audrey, Queen of the Galaxy, to whom we are especially grateful for their continuing support of this podcast.

0:00-25:58: Greetings! We are right off to the races, thanks to the some very sub-standard Dr. Strange comics, in particular the Roy Thomas/Gene Colan issues the Dr. Strange Epic Collection: A Separate Reality. Although we bring it up immediately, we get around to talking to them only after discussing other topics like talking in the third person, buying comics in the PDX, bad math skills, and more.

25:58-30:46: And what did Jeff read before he read the sub-par Dr. Strange comics? The tail end of the Claremont/Cockrum run on Ms. Marvel! “Were you being masochistic as shit?” Graeme asks, and it’s a sensible question! Jeff has little more to say than, “save me from bad comics, Graeme!”

30:46-35:37: In the interests of trying to save Jeff, Graeme mentions the Kamandi Special that just came out collecting the last two issues of the original run that’d been produced but never published. Also, Graeme has been reading old comics but *loving* them! Loving them! Graeme has been re-reading old Legion of Super-Heroes issues, the Mr. Miracle Special from the ‘80s by Evanier and Rude, and Showcase #100, a comic from the ‘80s that Graeme and Jeff have been shown love for here on the broadcast and go on to do so again, and Batman and the Outsiders Annual #1, featuring The Force of July, right-wing superheroes who believe the left-wing media is controlling the media. As Graeme so aptly puts it: “Someone’s got to bring back the Force of July. They are primed for a comeback!”

35:37-1:40:32: And Graeme’s also read Cullen Bunn’s Aquaman run, a run Graeme is not as enthusiastic about. And that leads us to talk about the unevenness of Bunn’s work in terms of when he’s good, he’s very good, but when he’s off, he can be pretty terrible. We talk about him, Jeff Lemire, and writers who turn out Big Two comics that do little more than nod at other comics…which leads us to talk about X-Men comics, and what it would take for us to really come back to the title (or titles), how Marvel treats its writers these days, the upcoming third Black Panther related title, the current arc in Detective Comics with Batwoman, Kate reading the Rebirth trades, Monsters Unleashed, Wild Dog and the Wild Dog Special (and the lost storylines of Action Comics Weekly and Marvel Comics Presents), the diversity of DC Comics back in the ‘80s, and more tangents than you can tan an agent with.

1:40:32-2:25:24: And so, somehow, we come to briefly discuss the season finale of The Good Place (which Graeme loved and Jeff has not seen) and then, at some length, the finale of Sherlock (which we have both seen and both, uh, have many thoughts about). SPOILERS for the Sherlock finale (you are very, very safe with The Good Place). Also discussed: the previous season of Who, creator swagger, Crazyhead on Netflix, the three seasons of Line of Duty on Hulu, and the return of Nashville to CMT and Hulu. And then we return for a quick round of comic book shoutouts before…

2:25:24-end: Closing comments! But first: We make a plan for a January podcast episode! Look for us on Stitcher!Itunes! Twitter together and separately: Graeme and Jeff! Matt! Tumblr, and on Patreon where a wonderful group of people make this all possible, including the kind crew at American Ninth Art Studios and Empress Audrey, Queen of the Galaxy, to whom we are especially grateful for their continuing support of this podcast.

Next week: Next week is a skip week! Give your ears a well-deserved vacation, read issues #238-247 of Fantastic Four, and then join us in a fortnight for the next episode of Baxter Building!

0:00-14:31: Greetings! Hopefully, it hasn’t been as long for you as it’s been for us. Yes, we pre-recorded some episodes to make sure you wouldn’t be cheated out of your just due of comic book blabbity-blab, so it’s been….a LONG time since we’ve talked. A month, maybe? So keep in mind that: (a) we have a lot to catch up on, and (b) there is a lot in here that is not very comic book related (or related at all, in fact). But let’s ease you in with our humble admissions that we barely remember how to do this, being photo-shy, our perceived lack of charisma. Come for the D and D talk, stay for the Goblin’s Lair (spoiler: it’s not what you’d think).

[The cartoon above is by the ever-amazing Tom Bolling but I seem to have really screwed up my ability to add captions to my images so I have to tell you down here instead of up there…]

14:31-1:12:18: And from here, we have to talk about the recent election because, well, come on, we just have to. If you listen to us, you already know that we are lefties to varying degrees. So if you might be offended by people like us talking about the election, pull the chute now and I’ll try to let you know when we start talking about stuff you might want to hear us talk about again. (Oh, but at one point, I talk about how, before the election, I got a lot of much-needed insight from this article. And then Graeme mentions this article.)

1:12:18-1:24:00: Okay, now that that particular discussion is over, we can move on to comic-related cruise stories, starting with Jeff’s surprise fellow cruising compatriot. If you need to pitch a comic book related remake of Vertigo set on the Love Boat, you may want to check this out.

1:24:00-1:52:25: Jeff also read over a hundred comic books and 3.5 novels on the cruise. He’d like to tell you about some of them. Discussed: Alan Moore’s Jerusalem (not one of the 3.5 novels); music biographies; Barbarian Days; A Surfing Life by William Finnegan; I Am Providence by Nick Mamatas; Machine Man by Kirby and Ditko: The Complete Collection; Fury: My War Gone By by Garth Ennis and Goran Parlov; issue #3 of The Flintstones by Mark Russell, Steve Pugh, and Chris Chuckry; The Vision by Tom King, Gabriel Walta and Jordie Bellaire; Batman: The Cult by Jim Starlin and Bernie Wrightson; Kill Them All by Kyle Starks; and more.

1:52:25-2:07:23: Aww, Jeff talked too much, damn it, forcing Graeme to run too quickly through the stuff he’s been reading and thinking about lately. Discussed: Walt Simonson’s Ragnarok from IDW and his Star Slammers from Epic way back when; We Told You So: Comics as Art by Tom Spurgeon and Michael Dean; early Strontium Dog stories by John Wagner as well as the pending rerelease of One-Eyed Jack; volumes of Mega-City Undercover; the third issue of Doom Patrol by Gerard Way and Nick Derington; and six amazing pages of Super Powers by Tom Scioli in the first two issues of Cave Carson Has a Cybernetic Eye.

2:07:23-end: Closing comments! Next week will be a Q&A session so please feel free to tweet or email us your questions. Look for us on Stitcher!Itunes! Twitter together and separately: Graeme and Jeff! Matt! Tumblr, and on Patreon where a wonderful group of people make this all possible, including the kind crew at American Ninth Art Studios and Empress Audrey, Queen of the Galaxy, to whom we are especially grateful for their continuing support of this podcast.

Next week: We will be here for you with another episode of Wait, What? Please join us, won’t you?

0:00-55:59: Greetings! Did you miss us? We missed us. And yet, rather than get too weepy about it, we quickly dive into a topic where we can get too weepy about it: the selling of comic books! Graeme let go of his collection before he left Scotland years ago, but Jeff only got rid of his entire collection of single issues in the last week, and the event looms large in his mind. Join us as we talk big numbers (and not the Moore/Billy The Sink kind): a man turning 50 has 3 weeks to sell 8,000 books! Mentioned along the way: Kurt Vonnegut’s Breakfast of Champions; Neil Fucking Strauss’ The Game; Birds of Prey; Donald Trump; collages; mortality; advertising; Luke Cage; pinkeye; and more.

55:59-1:40:59: On the opposite end of the spectrum: Graeme McMillan! Listen as he journeys between the in-laws to NYCC in a terrifying short time. Hear about a relatively unique con experience from Graeme in that it was constant work but somehow not as exhausting as, say, SDCC. Mentioned along the way: Luc Besson; Jill Pantozzi; Ryan North; Erica Henderson; Will Moss; Cameron Stewart; Dan Slott; cosplay; the news and non-news that came out of the show (Ms. America, Batwoman, Warren Ellis back at Stormwatch; DC’s Kamandi Challenge; Bleeding Cool crashing our browsers; the world’s laziest IT guy; The Blindtastic Four; depressing stuff about Paul Pope; #notmyspiderman, #whoareyourxmen, Kieron Gillen in discussion with Jonathan Hickman; The Star Slammers by Walt Simonson, and Swords of the Swashbucklers by Bill Mantlo and Jackson Guice; the disappearance of cheap back issues; and more.

1:40:59-1:47:14: Getting back to the now de-singled Jeff Lester, Graeme wants to know: will this change the way Jeff reads comics? As we all know, Jeff throws a lot of money at Comixology. Will he know throw them more? Less?

1:47:14-1:53:51: “Should we talk about actual comics that we’ve read?” Jeff asks, “or no?” And that’s pretty much our chance to more or less choose no, and then give callbacks to Graeme’s side of the conversation with discussion about what happened with Starslammers, Swords of the Swashbucklers, and Epic Comics, as opposed to Youngblood and Spawn, or Sex Criminals and WicDiv and Image Comics.

1:53:51-1:57:37: Oh, but Graeme has read the latest Scooby-Doo Team-Up with Hawkman and Hawkgirl, and has very good things to say about this book about which Jeff has been a long-term booster. Bonus: a joke from The Flintstones #4!

1:57:37-end: Closing comments! Next week will be a Q&A session so please feel free to tweet or email us your questions. Look for us on Stitcher!Itunes! Twitter together and separately: Graeme and Jeff! Matt! Tumblr, and on Patreon where a wonderful group of people make this all possible, including the kind crew at American Ninth Art Studios and Empress Audrey, Queen of the Galaxy, to whom we are especially grateful for their continuing support of this podcast.

Next week: Baxter Building Ep. 22! Read Giant-Size Super-Stars #1, Giant-Size Fantastic Four #4, and FF Annuals 11-13 and check them out with us!

0:00-10:45: Greetings! And a slow burn of a greeting it is, too, what with Graeme actively (actively!) asking questions about Jeff’s storage space moving plans. And then a discussion of media mail?! Are you kidding me?? Just how lucky are you, you guys? It’s almost impossible to gauge.

10:45-22:04: Comics! We realize right around here that we can talk about comics: y’know, just dive right and start talking about comics we’ve been reading on our over the last three-plus weeks that. So of course we spend some time talking about public reception to the upcoming Captain America: Civil War movie. Also discussed: anger and the Internet, surgery, scheduling, commercials and Marvel Comics, and more.

37:38-52:58: in fact, Graeme has read *a lot* of Geoff Johns material recently so he has some opinions on this very topic. Discussed: JSA, Hawkman, Brightest Day, Flash: Rebirth, and Green Lantern: Rebirth; Captain Britain; Geoff Johns’ Flash and TV’s Flash; and more.

52:58-1:19:17: “Are you into Flash?” Graeme asks. “Like, as a character?” This is a potentially great topic for conversation—who are our favorite heroes, and why?—but it catches Jeff surprisingly off-guard. Discussed: DC heroes and Marvel heroes; every Wildcat story ever; the template behind Morrison’s JLA and how it’s being used by Waid right now in All-New, All-Different Avengers; Nick Spencer and Daniel Acuna’s Captain America; Jeff’s Captain America theory; Avengers Standoff: Welcome to Pleasant Hill; DC’s Legends; where the name “The Phantom Stranger” came from; and more.

1:19:17-1:34:37: A thing Jeff re-read very recently and greatly enjoyed but not in the ways he expected: Elektra Assassin by Frank Miller and Bill Sienkiewicz. Also discussed: David Mazzuchelli and Daredevil: Born Again and Batman: Year One; Dave McKean; Barron Storey; and more.

1:34:37-1:40:06: Other things Jeff re-read and enjoyed: two collections of Brubaker’s and Phillips’ (and Staples’ and Breitweiser’s) ’ Criminal: Bad Night and Last of the Innocent, while also checking out the recent 10th Anniversary Special Edition Magazine. Discussed: Archie, Encyclopedia Brown; Britt Black; Wil Wheaton; Matt Fraction; and more.

1:40:06-1:52:39: Also on the “Jeff read and enjoyed this” list: 4 Kids Walk Into a Bank by Tyler Boss and Matthew Rosenberg; Unbeatable Squirrel Girl V2 #7 by Ryan North, Erica Henderson and Ricco Renzi; The Vision #6 by Tom King, Gabriel Hernandez Walta and Jordie Bellaire (with a possible spoiler for Civil War II); the problem with Ms. Marvel; and more.

1:52:39-2:09:30: Jeff also read via Marvel Unlimited the first issue of Amazing Spider-Man (2015) by Dan Slott and Giuseppe Camuncoli and he had, let us just say, “all the feels” about it. Discussed: Spidey’s love interests; how to have your spider-cake and eat it too; grown-ups and Richie Rich; #NotMyBlackPanther; and more.

2:09:30-2:14:46: Because we’ve run long, Graeme can only briefly extol the virtues of The Pantherby Brecht Evens (now out in English) and Hot Dog Taste Test by Lisa Hanawalt, both from Drawn & Quarterly); and Jeff manages to work in how much he enjoyed the first issue ofSun Bakery by Corey “Rey” Lewis.

2:14:46-end: Closing Comments! Look for us on Stitcher!Itunes! Twitter together and separately: Graeme and Jeff! Matt! Tumblr (where Graeme posted a really fantastic little Spider-Man story by Hannah Blumenreich. If you haven’t seen it already, you should check it out)! And our special thanks to the kind crew at American Ninth Art Studios for their continuing support of this podcast, as well as our continuing special thanks to the Empress Audrey, Queen of the Galaxy…and to all 120 of our supporters on Patreon who make all this possible.

NEXT WEEK: For some of the reasons discussed above, but also because of the schedule (we think?), there’s a skip week! Catch us in two for more audio gaga!

4:56-1:10:47: So, with that little bit of stupidity out of the way, on to the more serious stuff and part of the reason we decided it was worth bumping the Baxter Building by a day or two in or to discuss this: last week, Shelly Bond was fired from her position at Vertigo. And not long after that, to point out the frustration with one of the few female editors in power in the U.S. comics industry being fired, someone pointed out that, by contrast, DC editor Eddie Berganza was still working with the company despite his history as a serial sexual harasser.

Now, I’m not going to recap Graeme’s recap, or sum up the discussion he and I go on to have about both bits of news, but I should definitely link to Abhay’s excellent post about the Berganza situation, not least because I hadn’t read it before I talked to Graeme and I make several, if not most, of the asshole moves he specifically thinks could stupidly hinder the public discussion of the topic.

That said—with probably far less of an apology than I really should be offering—here is Graeme and I talking about the situation for an hour (with not nearly enough about the death of Prince, which upset Graeme and gutted me).

1:10:47-end: Closing Comments! We have closing comments for you! Look for us on Stitcher!Itunes! Twitter together and separately: Graeme and Jeff! Matt! Tumblr! Our special thanks to the kind crew at American Ninth Art Studios for their continuing support of this podcast, as well as our continuing special thanks to the Empress Audrey, Queen of the Galaxy…and to all 119 of our supporters on Patreon who make all this possible.